In this moment, there is nothing to do but let the grief in. I clutch tightly to the magnitude of my loss—the unbelievable, unbearable truth of it. It leaves me vulnerable, angry, and raw. In my mind, my loved one exists in the eternal now, both absent and ever-present. Moments of remembrance arrive without warning. These moments, tethered by shared intimacy, viscerally remind me of all I've lost.

Between ragged breaths and the tightening in my throat, grief intertwines with a feeling of sustained love that has nowhere to go. This love never ends and continues to shape who I am. My grief morphs to become a companion on my journey, carrying both the pain of separation and the eternal connection to those I have lost.

Transitions ask us to release what was and inhabit the uncertain space between endings and beginnings. In this liminal void, discomfort mingles with possibility. Like grief itself, these passages demand patience—there is no rushing through the fallow periods of our lives. Though the path forward beckons, transformation moves at its own pace, each step both an ending and a beginning. Within this dance of release and renewal, we find both the ache of what's lost and the whispered promise of what's yet to come. This too shapes who we become.